They said it was the first good news they'd had all day. So Sam and I left. At home Mary set a blood-rare round steak down in front of Sam's big pooch. Turns out he is not a fussy eater.
"It's the least we could do for him, Sam," she said. "And now Charlie, you want to show Sam his present from us, since we're still alive?"
It was sitting behind the little tool shed with a canvas cover over it. A new Honda CX-500, with full fairing and a special platform for Popeye covered with thick acrylic carpeting in silver-gray, which matched the bike. Sam rubbed his hands over the satin finish of the tank, the brightwork of the cylinder casings, the flat black of the cockpit instrument panel. He was speechless. The big dog at his side sniffed the machine and waggled his fat butt.
"She's quiet as a graveyard, Sam; I took her for a little spin yesterday. With this you won't give away your position to the enemy."
He and the dog walked in silence around the bike. Something looked different about the dog. I couldn't figure out what it was. We had drinks on the terrace. Sam couldn't seem to take his eyes off the bike. We let our doggies out of their runs and watched tensely as they approached the big bull mastiff, who was reclining sedately on the flagstones, digesting twenty ounces of steak. Danny, the yellow Lab, approached growling with a lot of braggadocio. Popeye looked at him through slit eyes over a wide mouth, bored. What was different about Popeye?
After fifteen minutes of bluffing and retreating, charging and dodging, the four dogs reached a truce and began to play.
"I know what's different about our friend," I said at last. "He's got a new harness on."
"Oh yeah," said Sam, taking the set of keys Mary handed him. "He got that last week; I threw the old one out. Doc, I've had a drink, but you think it's all right if I take it down the end of the drive and back?"
"Sure. But watch it- you've got about twice the power of your old bike, and a shaft drive too. It'll feel different."
Sam started the bike, eased it off its stand, and purred down the gravel drive slowly. He scarcely made a sound. He came back grinning from ear to ear.
"Doc, Mary," he said, "I just don't feel right about taking it without paying you. It's so nice and I just feel-"
"Cut it, Sam," snapped Mary. "It's really quite simple: if you hadn't been here, risking your own life, we'd be in the ground now. So let's not hear any more about it." She went inside to freshen up our drinks, and I patted the huge dog and scratched his ears. Popeye was used to all of us by now. The new harness he wore was about the scale of those used on Budweiser draft horses.
"This doesn't look new," I said. "It looks bigger and better than his old collar, but it's not new."
"Naw. It was Tommy's. It's heavyy-duty and cost Johnny a bundle to have it made, as I remember. So instead of throwing it out like I did Susie's, I kep' it. Makes him easier to control; he's got plenty a power."
"And Johnny had it custom-made?"
"Um-hmmm. Can't buy those."
"Take it off a minute. I may want to get some made for our dogs."
Mary brought the drinks and said she wondered what was taking Joe and Brian so long. She and Sam sipped and talked and played with the dogs. I turned the big harness over and over in my hands. The strap that held the lead ring was three inches wide and very heavy, with a lot of coarse stitching done in heavy welting twine. Strong enough even for a dog who could smash through doors.
A car door slammed out front and we heard low chuckles and guffaws coming to us on the cool evening air.
"Out here you guys!" yelled Mary, and the footsteps approached. I was fiddling with a rivet snap on the underside of the big leather strap. The men came around the corner, smoking. They oooh'd and ah'd the new Honda, and ordered drinks. Mary went, and came back with a mineral water for Brian and a Campari for Joe. We all toasted Sam. Then Popeye. We settled back in the redwood lawn furniture.
"Well," groaned Brian tiredly, "so what else is new?"
"This," I said, leaning forward with the leather harness in my hands. I had unsnapped the rivet fastener, which held the folded-back leather upper in place on the underside of the wide top strap. Unfolding this flap revealed another one, done in thin, fine leather, underneath. Snaking my index finger down inside, I realized it concealed a slip wider than a matchbook that ran the length of the big strap. It was like a money-belt slip, only bigger. I felt something in there. I pulled at it, and it slid. Soon we were all staring at the yellowish glow of manila paper. A thin envelope, whose flap I peeled back. Another envelope inside. Glassine. The old heart was thumping away now like a pile driver. I could feel my pulse in my neck. I slid out the gray glassine envelope and looked in. Inside was the slick, smoky-gray sheen of photo film.
"It appears we've just found the hot item," I said.
"Hot damn!" said Sam.
Carefully, I pulled out the filmstrip. Four frames. One of them was a picture photo. The other three appeared to be documents of some kind. I slid the strip back into its casing and stood up.
"I could perhaps make a silly joke and suggest that this could wait till after dinner, but I know where that would get me. Besides, two good men were killed because of this little strip of celluloid. Shall we?" I walked toward the kitchen door, and the little ragtag procession followed close at my heels.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The darkroom hadn't been totally restored since the burglary, but it was certainly operational enough to run some big prints from the negatives. It was obvious to me immediately that the film was not old. If the shots were of old things, then they were copies, and probably made within the past five or ten years. After running a test strip I made a big print of each negative on sixteen-by-twenty-inch Brovira paper. I put the prints into fresh developer, then stop-bath, and then fixed them. We tried to decipher them in the dim illumination of the safelight but couldn't. Then I took them from the fixer and put them in the wash tray. I had to stack them to fit, so we could only see one print at a time. I lit up the room. The five of us crowded around the wash tank when I was finished. We looked down at the first of the four big sheets that lay stacked underwater when I turned on the light. Well, it was hot all right. It was so hot I'm surprised the wash water didn't start to simmer. Here's what we saw:
The first print was a photograph of an old letter, written in longhand and without letterhead, to Frederick Katzmann, the prosecuting attorney. It was from John Vahey, the attorney for the defense who was later replaced by Fred Moore and finally by William Thompson. It was Vahey who told Bartolomeo Vanzetti not to take the witness stand in his own defense for the first crime he was tried for: the attempted holdup of the White Shoe factory in December1919. Vahey told Vanzetti, an accomplished orator, that to speak in his own defense would only prejudice the judge and jury against him. Wishing to cooperate, Vanzetti finally agreed. His failure to speak on his own behalf was later mentioned- twice- by Governor Fuller as the single most incriminating piece of evidence in the entire trial. Apparently his special commission agreed with him, and as a result they supported the earlier convictions of the Dedham courtroom. The letter proved beyond any reasonable doubt • that Vahey, the defense lawyer, and Katzmann, the prosecuting attorney, were in cahoots. No surprise then that they later became law partners. • that the trial was rigged from the start, with the prosecution and defense planning and executing an entire scenario that would railroad Sacco and Vanzetti straight to the electric chair. This, then, was the origin of the orchestration, the smoke-filled room and the mysterious "third hand" that I had sensed from the moment I began to read the histories of the case. • that Judge Webster Thayer knew of this cabal and perhaps even had a hand in its formation. The letter was not clear specifically as to the second point, but left no doubt as to the first one. • finally, that Katzmann and Vahey owed much of their plan's inspiration and execution to a brilliant and energetic young industrialist-lawyer: Joseph Carlton Critchfield.